Map Masters
- Designers: Ian Sebastian Bach, Cédrick Caumont
- Publisher: Captain Games
- Players: 1-5
- Age: 10+
- Time: 30-60 minutes
- Played with review copy provided by publisher
Map Masters is a dungeon-crawling card game in which you must create your path, card by card, through the dark rooms of your dungeon in search of legendary treasures. Dive into Map Masters, a thrilling adventure in Solo, Cooperative, or Competitive mode.
In Map Masters Versus Mode, each player builds their own Dungeon using 5 cards. Once their Dungeon is created, each player draws their Path to collect as many Discoveries as possible that match the round’s Objective. Next, players count the points of Discoveries along their Path that match the Primary and Secondary Objectives in order to earn Victory Points (VP). Along the way, players also collect Coins, which they can use to purchase new Cards or Tokens from the Market. Each turn player will also chose to use the Optimizers they encountered and improve their deck.
In Map Masters Co-op Mode, Players will jointly manage groups of adventurers. In order to accomplish a mission, players should discuss strategy both before and during the game. After the setup and the market phase, players will explore the dungeon.Clockwise, each player will place a card on an empty space of the tableau and draw a new card. Once a group mini can be connected to an objective, players should trace its path. When the mission requirements have been fulfilled, the game is won!
Every game is a new challenge to overcome, every card a crucial decision.
If playing competitively, start by giving each player a scoring card and the corresponding starting deck of dungeon cards as well as 6 coins. Organize the rest of the dungeon cards by cost (3, 4, 5, or 6) and shuffled each deck, then reveal 2 cards of each cost to form a market. Also shuffle the spellbook deck and also reveal two cards for the market. The fairy markers are also placed near the market. The deck of scoring objectives is shuffled and placed on the table.
At the start of each round, a scoring objective card is revealed. Then, players get a chance to buy cards – usually starting with the player with the least amount of coins. On a turn, each player can buy a single thing – a dungeon card of 3,4,5 or 6 cost, a spellbook of 2 cost or a fairy token of 1 cost. Purchased dungeon cards are placed on top of your draw deck. Spellbooks go above your scoring card, and you have 2 slots for them. If you buy a third, you must discard one of your existing spellbooks. Then the next player gets to buy something. If you pass, you can no longer buy things this turn and you are skipped for the rest of the phase. Each time a card is purchased, replace it in the market from the corresponding deck. Continue until all players have passed.
Now all players draw the top 5 cards from their deck and the round begins. If the scoring objective card for the round has an hourglass on it, then this round is played as a race. Otherwise, there is no specific time limit, though the rules suggest setting a 5 minute timer to keep things moving.
In this phase, players are trying to build a 5-card dungeon with the cards in their hand. Once built, players will then trace a path from any exterior entrance until the path ends at an exit or at an obstacle which cannot be overcome. As your path is drawn, you cannot cross your drawn line nor can you use a corridor more than once. It is possible to enter and move through a room twice so long as there are enough ways in and out AND your path does not cross itself.
As you encounter coins or items, you circle them to show that you gain them. You might find coins, barrels, swords, keys, scrolls and ropes. You will also encounter obstacles along the way. Dragons can be defeated (and your path can continue) if you have a circled sword earlier in your path that you can now cross out. Locks can be opened (and your path can continue) if you have a circled key earlier in your path which you can now cross out. You can activate a portal, and magically appear at any other portal in your dungeon, if you have a circled scroll, you can cross out. You can jump over a fire pit if you have a rope. You can also jump over regular pits with a rope, but you could also choose to fall down the hole and move to the lower level of the card. Finally there are a few optimizer icons that you will use at the end of the round.
As you are playing the round, you can use the special ability of your spellbooks once – rotating the card to show it was used. You can also use any fairy tokens you have to overcome an obstacle that you do not have a circled icon for.
If this is a race turn, you loudly exclaim “Done!” when you are finished and you may not make any more changes to your path. If you are the first done in a race phase, you check the corresponding box in the score card for this round. Everyone else can simply finish up their work as they wish.
Now the round is over, and things are resolved. First, players retrace their drawn path and collect coins equal to the number circled in their dungeon. Next, players score the visible objective card, scoring points for each occurrence of the icon shown on the card. This score is logged onto the player score card. Now the top card of the objective deck is flipped up and each player now scores this randomly revealed criteria, putting their score in the blue column for this round. The third column is circled only by the player who finished first and only if this was a race phase. The final column is checkmarked by each player who had a successful path through the dungeon, this is they entered and then exited – not being overwhelmed by any of the obstacles.
The next objective card is flipped over so that players can prepare for the next round. If any of the optimizer icons are circled, they can now be used. For each scissors icon circled, you can trash one of the five cards you played this round – permanently removing it from your deck. For each recycle icon you circled, you can take one of the cards you played this round and place it on the top of your deck, meaning they you will get it again in the next round. All cards are now wiped clean, and placed in your discard pile (unless you recycled it). Any unused Fairy markers are discarded (you only have the chance to use them in the round that you buy them). Reset any spellbooks that were used.
Repeat the process for six rounds. At the end of the game, sum up your scores. You score the full value for the primary scoring objective of each round. You’ll score half the points earned for the randomly revealed second objective. Each circled 1 in the race column is worth one point. Finally, players announce the number of checkmarks made in the final column. The player(s) with the most marks score 2 points, the next most marks scores 1 point and everyone else gets nothing. Finally, every three remaining coins is equal to a point. The player with the most points wins.
If playing cooperatively, you’ll need to set up a scenario for your group using the rules booklet. There are a number of different scenarios included, and they all have a slightly different feel. In this version, all the players work together to solve the puzzle of the level. There are usually four adventurers that start on the periphery of a half-filled grid (none of them is “owned” by a player), and players take turns playing a card to the grid and then moving those adventurers as necessary. A lot of the competitive rules remain in play, such as needing certain items to overcome obstacles. Many of the scenarios require you to have each adventurer bring a certain amount of a particular resource to a specific entrance at the central card. Others change things up a bit asking to fight off a boss enemy or perhaps rescue your compatriots from jail cells.
My thoughts on the game
I have been eagerly anticipating this release since I first had a chance to play it back in April 2025. This game is just such a fun puzzle as you try to make an optimal dungeon with your five card hand each round. The game also has a bit of a luck factor as you don’t know what the second criteria will be for each round. You can either try to go whole hog and hope that the same icon comes up again or you can try to diversify your icons to give yourself the best hope of scoring something.
There is a little bit of deckbuilding in the game, but honestly I feel like this is a minor part. The bigger effect of buying cards is that you get to use them in the round in which you buy them (after you have been made aware of the scoring criteria for the round). You probably won’t see purchased cards too many more times in the game. Likewise, I’ll take advantage of the scissors if I happen to run across them, but I don’t feel like there is enough time to effective cull your deck, so I’d rather encounter other icons if possible.
Buying a fairy marker is a little bit of a gamble, but it could get you out of a squeeze as it may let you conquer an obstacle early in your path without having to first have encountered the solution. It can also be used as a temporizing move in the buying phase as the cards in the market might cycle a bit and you may have better choices when your turn comes up again.
We have never had to set a timer in the competitive game, we generally finish our thinking in 3 or 4 minutes – while it can be challenging, there are only so many ways to arrange your five cards! Anyways, most people use the primary scoring criteria as their guide, so some of the card arrangement is somewhat obvious.
I do think that it’s quite neat that you can play the game both competitively as well as cooperatively. I have played each mode a few times, and honestly, I don’t know if I have one that I like more than the other. They are really almost different games that happen to use the same components; and in that way, it’s honestly a bit hard to compare one against the other.
Either way, the game has been enjoyed a great deal in my group. I think that I prefer the competitive version, but I would never say no to the cooperative either.
Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers
- I love it! Dale (competitive)
- I like it. Dale (cooperative), Ryan P
- Neutral. Michael A
- Not for me…
